There and Back Again

Rock Dog (2017) Review

Summary: When a radio falls from the sky into the hands of a wide-eyed Tibetan Mastiff, he leaves home to fulfill his dream of becoming a musician, setting into motion a series of completely unexpected events.

Pros:

Eddie Izzard as Angus. He’s this rock god of a cat and he’s pretty funny. Most of the laughs came from him. Angus is in a rut, he must write his next single and he just can’t do it. He meets Bodi and they write a song. Angus is also a jerk. He manages to turn it around a bit by the end of the film but he’s one of those characters that you like because they’re a jerk.

Enjoyable/Funny. This is one of those films that while it’s terrible, it’s kind of fun while watching it. I laughed quite a bit while watching it.

Cons:

The Character Relationships. They’re not all bad exactly but, Bodhi meets Darma and her band, they interact twice, and whenever he tries to tell them that someone wonderful has happened, they don’t believe him… but when they find out what he said is true, they’re suddenly his friends. They’ve only talked like twice! How are they friends? There’s not type of growth for us to believe that. Yes, it’s a kid’s film but still, kids aren’t stupid.

The Animation. It’s actually kind of terrible. I can’t recall seeing anything by the company and it unfortunately looks like one of those knock off animated films that I always come across while shelving in the library. It’s not beautiful. It’s clunky, unoriginal and it doesn’t look crisp and well done.

It’s Boring. The climax was lame. The animation is lame, the music is lame, the characters are lame.

The Story. I don’t understand why the whole wolf thing needed to be included. I mean, I get it, sheep and wolves are enemies and dogs protect the sheep… yeah but it’s stupid. The film should have just been about this teenage dog (I guess he’s a teenager) who wants to be a rock star after hearing the famous dude but his father is strict, or wants him to remain in the family business or something and he ventures out on his own to achieve his dreams. That other stuff… was completely unnecessary and it made the film clunky.

Overall, I mean, this movie is for kids but I think studios should stop thinking that kids will watch anything because the kids in my theater, were definitely not paying attention. This is one of those films that is a direct to DVD release but somehow it got put out in theaters. I mean, it’s cute but that’s really about it. The only reason I saw this was because Lionsgate is doing promotion with Regal Cinemas where if you see their four films, you get the free digital downloads of all four: John Wick: Chapter 2, Rock Dog, The Shack and Power Rangers. My friend and I only care about John Wick and Power Rangers so we made it through Rock Dog and we’ll being seeing The Shack sometime this week.

Rating: 2 out of 5 stars.

Have you seen Rock Dog? Are you even interested in seeing it? Let me know in the comments below! Don’t forget to like and follow this blog!